Coinciding with a restructuring of UT’s career services on campus, MyEdu.com will now help students in the hunt for jobs and internships.

The online higher education platform launched an overhaul of its website Wednesday morning and introduced “the student profile,” designed to connect students with potential employers. Students can search for jobs and internships, while employers can search for candidates who are matches for their company.

“Our mission is to help students get a better return on higher education,” said Frank Lyman, senior vice president of products and marketing at MyEdu. “After a couple of years of doing a lot to help students on the academic side, we are now adding this career aspect.”

Last year, the UT system invested $10 million in the online platform. MyEdu executive board member John Cunningham is the son of former UT President and UT System Chancellor William Cunningham.

Previously, MyEdu was a tool students could use to plan out their schedules for years in advance. The website has course data collected from more than 800 institutions, and Lyman said the scheduling service helps students graduate on time and save money. The scheduling service is still a part of MyEdu’s website, but now students can create a profile that shows their interests, skills and abilities.

Lyman said MyEdu spent a lot of time talking to students and trying to figure out what kind of services they were not receiving. He said many students wanted help finding careers and internships.

“What we are trying to accomplish is help students tell their story uniquely,” Lyman said. “The resume is a piece of paper, and everything interesting about a student is in one line at the bottom.”

The student profile will allow students to create an interactive resume where they show their work experience, volunteer hours, passion, skills, dream job, Facebook and twitter accounts, projects and more.

Gretchen Ritter, vice provost for Undergraduate Education and Faculty, said having multiple career services across campus that were not overseen by one center made it confusing for employers who were trying to find an entry point to the University.

“We also felt that some of our students were not being served as well as we’d like them to be,” Ritter said. “Some of the smaller schools may not have as many resources.”

Ritter and Brad Englert, UT’s chief information officer, help lead the implementation effort for MyEdu on campus. Englert said this center will encourage students to use MyEdu’s student profile.

“I think they’re going to coordinate multiple tools to help students,” Englert said. “MyEdu is one of the tools in the toolbox. It is something that can be used.”

Ritter said UT System officials have been working with MyEdu since the company approached them about the idea of a student profile.

“It’s been something that has been refined through extensive dialogue between the company, the system, the regents and the campuses,” Ritter said.

Englert said the UT System responded very positively to MyEdu’s intial presentation of the student profile.

Lyman, senior vice president of products and marketing at MyEdu, said MyEdu will work with career service officers across the nation to ensure they understand what the new student profile can do for students.

“Career services uses a lot of different tools to help students,” Lyman said. “Our hope is that this will be another tool career services will recommend to students.”

MyEdu is a free service for students, and the company said Wednesday it will always remain free.

Printed on Thursday, October 11, 2012 as: MyEdu evolves to include career services for students